


It Might All Be Gone Tomorrow

by CatherineParker



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: 5x10, F/F, Fix-It, Fix-It of Sorts, POV Sameen Shaw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-07-12 17:35:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7115692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatherineParker/pseuds/CatherineParker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shaw goes to the hospital instead of Fusco.</p><p>(If it had to happen, this is how it happened and no one can tell me otherwise.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Might All Be Gone Tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author of this story. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any previously copyrighted material. No copyright infringement is intended. No profit is made of this.

 

 

“Alright, thanks.” Detective Fusco nodded at the uniformed police officer lingering behind the barrier tape, then headed back to where Reese and Shaw were waiting for him. The ambulance lights of several police cruisers flashed rhythmically, illuminating the night in blue sparks of light every other second. Left abandoned in the middle of the street still stood the bullet riddled silver BMW.

“These guys are clueless. It’s like a war zone out here.”

Detective Fusco looked back to the wreckage of a car behind them. “They said, they pulled two people out of the car. One is in custody down at Central. One of them …” He trailed off, taking in a deep breath. The lines on his tired face more pronounced in the shadows of the night. “One of them is at St. Mary’s in critical condition.” Fusco’s brow furrowed, darking the grim expression on his face.

“Samaritan won’t give up.” Reese said. “They’re both in danger. We need to split up.”

  
“I’ll go to the hosp-.” Fusco responded immediately, but Shaw cut him off. "No, I'll go."

  
Reese’s stare fixed on her. “Be careful Shaw.”

  
“Yeah.” Shaw murmured under her breath, already turning to the car that had brought them here.

 

* * *

 

 

The fluorescent hospital lights flickered, humming with intensity under the strains of permanent use. The sound annoyed Shaw as soon as she stepped through the hospital's sliding doors. The place was buzzing with activity, nurses hurrying around, patients waiting. Shaw liked hospitals at least as much as she liked all the other places she had worked. The time of her residency had been very successful, even though her superior had had a slightly different opinion about it. Really, she would have been a great Doctor. Who cared about bedside manner after all, when you were safe and sound. And she had been very good at saving lives.

Shaw made her way to the nurses counter, waiting for the nurse behind the desk to finish her call. The name tag pinned to pink scrubs read ‘Rachel Smith’ and the woman looked up to her briefly, acknowledging Shaw, before she returned her attention back to the note she was scribbling. Shaw had never felt fear directly, there was just not enough range of emotion to feel it fully. But she was certainly aware of that distinct feeling of dread that had settled in her stomach at the sight of the car that Root and Finch had driven to escape. The dark stains she could make out on the cushions of the drivers seat, as she had stepped closer to the barrier tape. From that far away she couldn’t distinguish how much it really was, but what she saw had already been enough for the feeling to settle.

“Hi. How can I help you?” The nurse looked up at her, exhausted blue eyes fixing on her face.

“I’m looking for someone who has been admitted approximately two to three hours ago.”

"Name?” Root. It’s Root. It always has been Root. “Samantha Groves?” Shaw wasn’t sure under what name she had been checked in, but with the police maybe taking Root’s prints it was her best guess.

The nurse eyes seemed to narrow slightly at her questioning tone, but shrugged it off easy enough and typed away.

“Yeah, got her here.” She murmured after a moment of frantic clicking and more typing. “She is in intensive care. It’s on the 3rd floor, take the elevators on the right.”

“Thanks.” Nodding to the other woman, Shaw turned to head to for the elevators the nurse had pointed out.

“I’m afraid though that only family members are allowed in for the time being.” The nurse called after her.

“That’s fine.” Shaw replied as she turned her head back to face the nurse once more, lips curving into a half smile. “I am all she’s got.”

 

* * *

 

 

The hospital room’s main lights were off, only the small bedside lamp illuminating the space sparsely during nighttime. With the door shutting behind her, the room was cast into silence. Drowning out the various noises of the hallway with a simple click. The more or less steady beeping of the heart monitor felt like relief, even when her eyes finally traveled to the bed and the fragile form laying still inside it.

Root was asleep as far as Shaw could tell, as she stepped closer to the end of the hospital bed, where the chart was missing from its holder.

“Hey Sweetie.” The voice was foreign and rough, carrying pain and exhaustion in its tunes. “Wondered when one of you or Samaritan operatives were going to show up.” Root inhaled sharply as a cough rocked through her body, a hiss escaping between tightly clenched lips. Shaw stepped closer but remained out of touching distance, her clinical mind scanning the body in front of her for injuries from head to toe.

“But you are a sight for sore eyes Sameen.” Root winked at her, in her overly obvious way. Shaw rolled her eyes. “One of these days you won’t be able to deny that you care Shaw.” Root said conspiratorially. Shaw looked at her, taking in the pale skin, the thin long fingers curling over stark white sheets, and realized that she was already long past that. She did care. Over 7.000 simulations had shown her just how deeply. Not that Root needed to know that.

"Where's your chart?" Shaw took the last step to stand next to the bed, deflected giving voice to anything related to Root's teasing, watching as brown eyes lost their sparkling quality. Root looked bad, worse than Shaw had ever seen her. Even the usual banter seemed overly forced and she was definitely still in way too much pain. The feeling of dread that had been put on hold as she had found Root alive, even conscious, crept back in with growing intensity. And Shaw was not taking any chances with Root underselling the situation. Shaw needed to evaluate for herself, needed all the facts.

"I don't really know." Root exhaled over a shaky breath, eyes growing unfocused as she shifted slightly, rustling the covers. The heart monitor beeped faster. "Must have taken it as I was sleeping."

"I will go and see if I can find it." Shaw turned to leave, but was stopped by a cold hand closing around her wrist like a vice. "Don't go just yet."

Shaw wanted to argue, wanted to know exactly what they were dealing with. Wanted to find some freaking doctor or nurse to fill her in. Something was off, she could just tell, but the desperation in Root's voice kept her still.

"What happened to Harold?" Root's eyes fixed on her, her gaze a little more aware than only a moment before. Shaw could tell she was trying. Trying to distract her from leaving, trying to distract Shaw from noticing in the first place. The fingers around her wrist loosened, but never disentangled from her skin.

"Didn't the machine keep you in the loop?" Shaw raised a brow, she had clearly expected Root to know more than Shaw herself. Root didn't answers, just gave her a look that told her she clearly wouldn't ask if she did. Or maybe she was just too tired, Shaw noticed how her eyelids fell shut ever so often, the strain showing in Root's face as she forced them open.

"Finch has been taken down to Central, the cops giving him a run for his money." Root's lips quirked up at that and Shaw was suddenly overwhelmed how the sight of it made her feel. "Reese and Fusco are on their way to get him, so don't you worry."

"I don't, I know he is in good hands." Root said, her fingers traveling down, giving Shaw's hand a little squeeze. Her gaze lingered on Shaw's face, her eyes glassy. There, Shaw acknowledged, was that feeling again. The one only Root brought to the surface, a tightness in her chest, the escalating heartbeat. It felt quite similar to excitement, but more demanding and intricate. The longer she held Root's gaze the more overwhelming it became. It still felt new - even though it had been there weeks before the stock exchange - but not to this extent. Back then she could not deal with it, did not know how to make her heart beat slower as it hammered faster and faster as if trying to break free from her chest.

The heart monitor beeped irregular in the background and Root's fingers moved slowly against her palm.

"I'll just see if I can find one of the doctors, okay?" She could see Root wasn't going to stay conscious much longer, her eyes staying closed for longer periods of time. Shaw whispered, leaning down close to speak in her ear. "I'll be right back." Root's lips spread into a lazy smile, even before she opened her eyes to meet Shaw's. "I ha..." she began, but Shaw's pressed her lips against Root's before she could finish that sentence. And Shaw was relatively certain that she didn't mind the interruption as Root trailed her fingers over Shaw's cheek and into her hair, pulling her in closer. Kissing Root in real time, was so much better as it had been in any of the simulations. They had kissed before, but back then it had been a hurried pressing of lips in the face of mortal danger. Now no one was watching, no one was leaving, now there was finally time.

Root's tongue licked into her mouth and Shaw felt a shiver run deep down to the tip of her toes. As much as she mocked Root for her relentless pursuit she wouldn't want it any other way. Shaw captured Root's lower lip between her teeth and bit down, not hard enough to draw blood but enough to make Root moan against her lips and tighten the grip in her hair.

The heart monitor beeped again, had most likely for the entire time, but only now it permeated into her consciousness. Pressing one last lingering kiss to the corner of Root's mouth, Shaw pulled back slightly. "Don't you dare go anywhere until I come back."

Root licked her lips, her gaze once more sharp and full of mischief. "I couldn't move, even if I wanted to." Her eyes traveling down to Shaw's lips then back up again. "Someone has made my knees go very weak."

Shaw rolled her eyes, but couldn't keep the smile off her face as she moved to the door to finally get a closer look at that chart. Even when she had to kneecap a doctor to get it. "You are impossible."

"Sameen." Root's serious voice stopped her, before she stepped fully out of the hospital room and she looked over her shoulder. She could see it in Root's eyes, bright as lightning in the night sky.

"I know." Shaw said with conviction. And she did. She didn't need for Root to say it out loud. It was coating her every word and gesture, her every touch and every smile. It was more than enough.

"Me too." Shaw whispered over a breath and were it not for Root's sharp inhale she never would have guessed she had heard.

 

* * *

 

It took Shaw ten minutes to locate the doctor who had been placed in Root's care. A nurse pointed her to one on-call room to another only to find it empty. The doctor had been paged and he responded and an intimidated nurse promised to send him to room 306 as soon as he arrived on the ward.

Shaw returned to a flatline on the heart monitor.

Doctors and nurses rushed past her. The clock in the hallway ticked.

Shaw bit down on the insides of her cheeks and kept her gaze onward.

With the coppery taste of blood on her tongue she could still feel the imprints of Root's fingers curling against her wrist.

A doctor called the time.

Thirty minutes later, Shaw reached for the phone in her pocket and dialed Reese's number.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> A lot of tears were shed while writing this story.
> 
> (Any Feedback is -as always- very much appreciated!)


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